Other ABC News Sites

Listen live

Audio 5:40
Warning not to ban return of Australians fighting in Syria

Eleanor HallUpdated
Mon 28 Oct 2013, 9:59 PM AEDT

As the former Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, raises concerns about the high number of Australians fighting in Syria, The World Today speaks to Dr David Malet, who's just published a book about recruits to overseas insurgencies, and who warns against banning them from returning to Australia.

Transcript

ELEANOR HALL: Australia's intelligence service says that more than 200 Australians have now joined the civil war in Syria, and the former foreign minister Bob Carr is calling on the Abbott Government to look at ways of banning them from returning home.

But a specialist on the issue from Melbourne University's School of International Relations says that, while some of these war veterans may pose a terrorism risk, it would be counterproductive to block their return to Australia.

Dr David Malet has just published a book about recruits to overseas insurgencies called Foreign Fighters. He joined me earlier.

Dr Malet, ASIO says that around 200 Australians are fighting in Syria - a much higher number than foreign fighters from other countries. Did that surprise you when you first heard those numbers?

DAVID MALET: It is a bit surprising because there have been Australians serving as foreign fighters in a number of other conflicts, like Somalia most recently. There have been Australians fighting with Al-Shabaab, the group that led the hostage taking in the shopping mall in Kenya.

But they've never been the largest group of westerners. So Syria's a little bit unusual. You have just a handful of Canadians and Americans, maybe a hundred or so British and French citizens. But Australia has by far the largest number.

We don't know how many of them are actually fighting. But there are a lot of cases where people say that they are going for a humanitarian purpose and then end up carrying weapons and fighting an insurgency. So it's probably safe to assume that most of these 200 people are actively involved in combat operations to one degree or another.

ELEANOR HALL: So why do you think so many Australians are joining the war in Syria?

DAVID MALET: Australia has an active, politically active Lebanese community which happens to have a lot of local ties to the conflict in Syria. You didn't see so many Australians going to Iraq or Somalia or Yemen. I think it just happens to be that people have relatives, have acquaintances back in home countries who can facilitate getting people across the border into Syria and have connections with some of the militant groups there.

ELEANOR HALL: What's your reaction to the call by the former foreign minister, Bob Carr, for the Abbott Government to look at ways of banning the return of Australians who do fight in Syria? He says he tried to do it but advised it wasn't legal.

DAVID MALET: It's probably not legal. If somebody's a citizen I don't know that you can keep them from returning from Australia. You could look at stripping them of their citizenship which is what some Arab states have done to foreign fighters. But then they're just sort of left floating out there on the global stage and they become a perpetual problem.

There will always be an Australian face of foreign fighters in conflicts around the world if that happens. I tend to think it's a bad idea simply because most people who become foreign fighters actually don't become involved in domestic terrorism. But 10 per cent might do so.

But if you know who they are, if you know who's gone to Syria, if you can have good intelligence monitoring them, you can keep track on them.

Most counter terrorism operations actually involve just monitoring people until they become an eminent threat. So rather than driving people underground, it's probably best just to keep a low profile and watch what they do.

ELEANOR HALL: Do you think that the former foreign minister is right to be concerned about the radicalisation potentially of these people once they've been fighting in Syria?

DAVID MALET: Absolutely. Some security officials from the European Union who've looked at the smaller numbers of Europeans who've gone and said not everyone's radical when they go to Syria but most of them probably are when they come back.

And we've seen some examples of the potential for blowback against Australia before. You had four Australians who went to fight in Somalia and wanted to use their skills that they gained there to blow up the Holsworthy army barracks.

So there's certainly the potential and you can understand why any politician would say I'm not leaving anything to chance, let's minimise the risk of anybody coming back and committing a terrorist act.

ELEANOR HALL: Looking at the other side, what is the appeal for, say, Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, to use foreign fighters?

DAVID MALET: There are a few different reasons that groups use foreign fighters. One might be that they simply are looking for more volunteers, more man power. It gives them a propaganda virtue as well to have people come from Western countries to say that look, this fight is important enough to lay down my life for. It's not just some local issue.

There's access to Western sources of financing, fundraising and materiel. And groups have also found that the recruits who are willing to break the law - willing to endure in some cases the personal expenses of travel, they pay for it themselves - are going to be the most diehard. They're going to be the ones willing to take the greatest chances.

Foreign fighters were responsible for the most levels of violence and suicide bombings in Iraq. Foreign fighters are conducting most of the suicide bombings in Syria today as well.

ELEANOR HALL: From what you're saying, that suggests that the Australians who are fighting in Syria at the moment, are likely to be some of the most extreme, the most violent and the most ideologically driven, of the fighters in civil conflicts like Syria.

DAVID MALET: They probably are. I think probably the biggest danger, is really they come home as recruiters. There's a lot of evidence that foreign fighters have gone from places like Iraq and seen as heroes in their local communities, seen to have credibility to inspire other people to go.

I think in today's internet era that would be true whether they came back to Australia or not, if they could simply post around the world about their exploits - which is why I don't think that aspect matters as much these days in countries with internet penetration.

But on the other hand, most people don't simply buy a plane ticket and go off by themselves. They are part of a broader community group; they interact with others online through their mosques and community institutions.

And that's why I think it's actually probably a safer bet just to keep tabs on people, because they're always talking to someone about how to get involved, what they did, and then we can monitor, we can get intelligence about who is performing what activities, who is recruiting who, who conduits are for mobilisation and transport. And it's probably better not to drive those sort of conversations underground.

ELEANOR HALL: Dr Malet, thanks very much for joining us.

DAVID MALET: Thank you.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Melbourne University's Dr David Malet. He's the author of the book Foreign Fighters. And you can hear more from him on our website.